Runners are the warrior elite, the gunslingers,
the ronin, the knight errants of the almost
lawless society that they live in. It is
a career that is often short, but which
offers the promise of fame, glory, wealth,
and even power for those who are successful
at it.

MOTIVATION

In a setting where the vast majority of
"legit" jobs involve being a salaryman
(often referred to sneeringly as "the
walking dead" by Runners) for some
huge impersonal megacorporation, some get
into Running just for the promise of freedom
it offers. Others want the fame or street
cred depending on what strata of missions
they are qualified for. Still others are
just by nature violent or adrenaline junkeys
and fine Running a paid outlet. And some,
such as prior military and sec-forces people,
really have no other marketable job skills.
Oh...and lets not forget the Runners that
are in it solely for the money.

RENUMERATION

Running pays well. If you survive. Of course
once you factor in the cost of equipment,
additional training, maintaining a certain
amount of personal security or anonymity
vs reprisals, and the inevitable cost of
medical care, its not as lucrative as it
seems on the surface.

Still, an average runner with a few successes
under their belt that know how to barter
respectably can pull down more from a single
job than a salaryman of parallel stature
could earn in a year of work. If a Runner
can keep their expenses down, they can live
a comfortable existance on two ideal jobs
a year. The problem is finding such cush
jobs, because there are few of them and
plenty of other Runners that want them.

In practice, Runners often need to do several
smaller scale jobs, or else take on big,
dangerous, high paying jobs as part of a
team of Runners. That's where the real money
is at; jobs so complex, risky, big, requiring
of disparate skills, or multipronged (or
some mixture thereof) that it requires a
group of Runners. There is a nice premium
worked into the going rate for this type
of job, and the most high-profile of such
are the balliwick of the very best Runners.

ORGANIZATION

Occassionally teams are assembled as needed
by a Fixer calling on several Runners that
they have built up a certain amount of trust
with over time, but the larger the team
the less practical this becomes. In the
dangerous and violent reality of Running
big jobs familiarity with ones teammates
is not only a bonus, its often all that
stands between success and failure.

Thus teams of Runners that have worked and/or
trained together previous to the job at
hand are a valuable commodity and most Runners
have some team affiliation. Some teams are
exclusive, meaning individual members only
do jobs within the framework of the team.
Others are much looser, and some are no
more than a collection of loners that can
tolerate working with each other on a repetitive
basis as convenience or circumstances require.

MATRICULATION

There are no certifications or degrees that
one can pursue as a Runner, but there are
very definitely qualifications and echelons
of Runners. "Its all about the skillz"
is a truism of Runner life, but rep and
street cred count for a lot too. When a
Fixer is considering farming out a job to
one or more Runners, if they had two candidates
and one claimed to have a skillset that
was a perfect match to the job but was green
or cherry as a Runner, and the other was
kind of fuzzy on the skills but had some
good runs under their belt the Fixer would
probably pick the more experienced over
the more skilled.

Lots of messed up stuff can happen on a
run, and having the best skill set in the
world wont help much if a rookie Runner
mistake results in an early death.

There are interesting informal statistics
held to be true by most Fixers, drawn from
vast empirical and anectdotal experience,
indicating that a Runner is most likely
to die in their first few missions, but
if they survive them then they are likely
to survive for 10-15 missions, after which
their life expectancy drops rapidly.

It is thought by some Fixers that the reason
for the sudden drop is due to either overconfidence,
security forces accumulating enough knowledge
about Runners to eventually figure out a
weakness, the Runners gear becoming obsolete
(particularly for cybernetically enhanced
Runners), or just burnout and wear on the
Runners themselves, or some combination
thereof.

Because of this Fixers practically never
start rookies, or bullet sponges as they
are sometimes called, on missions that are
obviously going to be rough. If the job
fails the Fixer doesnt get paid after all;
and also it hurts their credibility with
the clientele. Courier, body guard, and
distraction missions are much more likely
starting jobs. And even then things often
go bad. Due to the high mortality rate among
new Runners and the unwillingness of Fixers
to farm out missions to those who seem incompetant,
there is a entry bar to the career.

However after a Runner has a few good jobs
under their belt, they can expect to start
getting more job offers from Fixers, and
more respect from fellow Runners. In some
cases a Runners rep outpaces reality, but
as long as they are careful to not believe
it themselves and take jobs they can actually
pull off it might not matter in the long
run.

VALIDATION

Any shmuck can pick up a gun and claim to
be a Runner, but theres more to the profession
than toting hardware. In addition to the
basic requirements of competency, which
mortality rates sort out, there are also
some unwritten rules that apply to the trade.
More of an informal code than acutal rules
really, but nevertheless those who violate
them will likely encounter difficulties
when dealing with other Runners, Fixers,
and Suppliers.